


Can't You Feel The Ground Caving In

by sasha_b



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Kinkmeme, Matt has feelings, Post-Season/Series 01, Some Descriptions of Violence, Spoilers, Whump, implied Matt/Foggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stumbling seems like the right thing to do.  </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>So he does it, and because there’s no one there to see him or to expect any certain kind of behavior, he stumbles to where his couch is (or should be; since when did he say it was okay for Foggy to have someone come and clean his place??) and after a forced moment of <i>focus</i> Matt staggers to it, finding it 2.3 feet off to the left of the original spot.</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Matt and his little family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't You Feel The Ground Caving In

**Author's Note:**

> For the Daredevil Kink Meme. 
> 
> Prompt: _Can somebody pls write a fic of any of the above finding Matt back home after going out as Daredevil, huddled underneath a blanket, shirtless and all bloodied/beat up?_
> 
>  
> 
> _Bonus points for cuddling and blanket sharing._
> 
>  
> 
> I can't NOT do angst for these guys, sorry. Matt + his feelings = my OTP. I loved this prompt and I hope I did it justice - I tried to do more cuddling but this is what Matt said he'd do, so. 
> 
> Some descriptions of violence.
> 
> Title from the Evanescence song A New Way To Bleed.

Stumbling seems like the right thing to do. 

So he does it, and because there’s no one there to see him or to expect any certain kind of behavior, he stumbles to where his couch is (or should be; since when did he say it was okay for Foggy to have someone come and clean his place??) and after a forced moment of _focus_ Matt staggers to it, finding it 2.3 feet off to the left of the original spot. 

Collapsing seems like the next right thing to do, so he does, and once he’s sort of horizontal on the leather (the squeaking is loud; the neighbors playing D and D and drinking compete with the screech of the tanned hide against the suit) he winces and shudders and pulls the mask off with the pointer and third finger on his left hand.

He grins, a psychotic stretching of his dry lips; the _put put put put_ of blood on the cement floor is rhythmic, his theme song, and blinking his unfocused eyes seems the third right thing to do. He raises a shaking hand and wipes the sweat and viscous fluid off his forehead, and decides he should either call Claire or Foggy or Karen and get their help in order to stop the _put-ting_ of fluid leaking out of his side. He can’t die. Not while Hell’s Kitchen still needs him. 

But he’s so tired. Just once, he’d like to lie down and rest, so tired, God, he really understands now why his dad was the way he had been after a fight. But his dad had been strong and hadn’t shown much weakness to young Matty, hiding the trembling and the shortness of breath and the bone deep _God, I know I’m doing the right thing, but just give me a sign here_ and Matt falls further over to his side, clutching his fingers over his wound, the blackness that accompanies his passing out an old friend _you know, that old friend that does nothing but text you and complain and then doesn’t bring any drinks when you have a party_.

*

_The punching is just like when he uses the bag, but the bones and muscle tissue he’s hitting are a much more satisfying landing place than the leather at the gym._

_Snap_

_The meat sack he’s pummeling takes it, he’ll give him that. But the crunch and crackle of breaking bone and smashed tissue is like a balm to his brain that he just_

_Can’t_

_Stop_

He jerks awake.

The _put put put put_ has stopped, but he can smell the iron that coats the air and the inside of his nostrils and he gags unexpectedly, turning his head just in case –

_control_

He knows this time he really needs to call one of them. The light from the huge billboard outside his windows pulsates; the hum from the fluorescents annoying and it forces him to rise, weak _damn it_ , searching for his phone.

He takes a wobbling step gingerly over the pool of blood and God wow 

_do you ever get the spins?_

He drops to one knee, the damn spins he doesn’t get a pass on forcing him there, and he reaches out, shaking, sick from blood loss, his fingertips grazing his phone. He fumbles and thumbs it on and speaks to the computer and says “Foggy,” just as he’s hit with a rush of _heat_ from his torn skin (nausea rising, trapped in his brain and behind his mouth) and he rips the top section of the suit away, pitching it to land with the mask on the floor, four inches from the cooling pool of blood that’s his and that he really thinks would be better if it were back in his body, thanks.

“Matt?”

“Uhhn,” he gets out before his body decides that _hey! You’re lying down, Murdock!_ and the blanket that’s haphazardly laying on the floor that he’s had since he was eight seems suddenly much nicer than talking to Foggy, whose voice he is gradually losing – he cuddles the blanket, holds on to it, a lifeline that’s more real than the worried (more and more so) voice that drifts through the ether until it’s no more real than the red suit he puts on at night to beat up criminals in.

Matt laughs, and clutches the blanket closer as the _focus_ hears a few words that might or might not have been _…on the way, hang in there…Ma_ before he decides that he’s sick of listening to the neighbors and the thrum of blood in his ears and the crackle of his left wrist when he rotates it and the drip in his sink that will start up in three…two…one

*

He’s used to sleeping where and whenever he can, snatching bits and pieces when the _focus_ had allowed him to shut things out. He’s gotten much better at it with age; his meditation and the release from what he’s been doing at night allows him to drop where he is. So the hard floor doesn’t feel too hard when he wakes up to concerned murmurs and the _scratchysoft_ blanket under his head.

“Fog-”

“Matt! Hold still, buddy, we’ve finally got the bleeding stopped.” Matt can hear the smile in the words, but just like every time this happens, it’s not a real smile. In fact, it hides the angerworrytears _fuck Murdock you’re killing me_ he knows his friend is actually feeling.

It would break him apart if he wasn’t already there.

Karen’s perfume hits him before her hands touch him, and he sighs it in as she moves him to rest in her lap, the _put put-ing_ gone and (his sink’s still dripping, though) Foggy is there with a compress, water and a bottle of aspirin that smells like the market on the corner by their office (day old croissants and new lettuce) and Matt lets them coddle him, lets them wrap him in the blanket and lets Karen still hold his head as they move him to the couch with the blanket in tow.

“Claire,” he gets out; _Karma_ perfume, hair product (Suave), the waterproofing treatment on the thin nylon jacket she’s patched one too many times. “She’s gone,” Foggy says as he forces Matt to settle on Karen’s lap on the couch; they coat him in layers of blanket but still he shudders. He’s lost a lot of blood this time.

The other guy had lost a lot more. He grins, the slash of his lips red and thin, a knife wound in his face.

Foggy’s brows come together (sometimes the _focus_ works too well; the muscular control Foggy uses to move his face hurts Matt’s ears) and Matt feels a sting in his chest that has nothing to do with his injuries. “She’s um. Well, Claire is. What would you say Claire is, Karen?” Foggy moves around and forces Matt to take the aspirin; he really needs pharmaceuticals but the few times he’s tried them, they make things so so much worse.

Karen shifts and Matt’s head hurts, the wound in his side that’s been stitched (UGH, she used Dermoplast again. On purpose, he thinks) pulling and throbbing in time with his heart. “Well, Claire,” Karen chirps out. Matt winces.

“It’s okay,” he barks, his throat aching and he reaches out for the water Foggy is holding. He swigs some down, and _where’s the blanket, dad?_

_Here ya go, Matty._

“I know she’s mad,” he adds, roughly. Is it still night? Wait – close to sunrise. How long has he been out?

How long till the repercussions of what he’s done echo through the city? The righteous path is the path he treads, and the people he helps are deserving of the hero he is and can be.

But his back aches and he’s been stitched together so many times (Claire, Claire, Claire) he’s surprised his skin hasn’t torn off his bones, collapsing at his feet, another suit to shed. “It’s okay. She’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know, Matt,” Foggy sighs, his hand warm on Matt’s leg, the feel familiar through the material of the suit. “She’s – anyway,” he tries to sound bright, but Matt’s _focus_ has begun to waver and twist and he turns his head in Karen’s lap but that is _ow_ and the blanket, where’s the blanket, where is his

“…shit Foggy should we call her…”

“…think he’ll be fine he just needs to….Matt are you…”

_The snap of bones under his fists is a balm._

_We’re Murdocks. We get back up._

_I wouldn’t have hid this from you. Not you, Matt. Not this._

_I can’t take another step. Not another, not alone._

“Matt?” Karen’s hands are soft on his temples, and Foggy’s grip on his knee – they anchor him to this world, if only for another day. If only for this moment and (he misses Claire) this is all he needs. Foggy and Karen (and Claire; he’ll call her tomorrow, as long he makes it through the rest of this short night) and the avocados (he snorts; Foggy starts but squeezes his knee harder) and the life he’s made for himself – his dad would be proud.

The feel of breaking bones and flesh beneath his fingers is almost as 

_he wants it, wants justice, wants the beating heart of his city to thrive_

almost as

_Foggy smiles; Matt feels it with drunkenly splayed fingers, celebrating their passing the bar_

almost as good as this.

*

He leaves a second message for Claire; he hopes she’ll come around (knows she will). He worries about her, worries about the state of her soul, worries about her not wanting anything to do with him or Daredevil anymore.

Him, Matt Murdock. Really? She’s already said there’s no place for that here.

He aches, and he’s hungry, and Foggy will be bringing food by later since neither of them wants the people that deliver from the Thai place to see Matt this hurt. They’d say something and then someone else might say something and _who’s beating up the blind guy?_ and then something else.

The stitches in his side have held, and he sits on the couch, pulling the blanket to him, wrapping in its worn cushion and he closes his eyes, shutting the _focus_ down, and he puts his hand out, if only to rest it for just a minute, and hard plastic and rubber fumble under his grip.

He grasps the helmet (mask), and brings it to his lap, competing for space with the blanket.

His mouth twists and he raises the thing to his nose, breathing in the scent of his success and sometimes failure to protect this city he owes everything to. No matter that it took Jack Murdock from him, no matter that it gave him his current life.

His head snaps up and he stands.

When Foggy shows up, his hands full of pizza, the loft is empty, Matt’s tee shirt and sweats sitting folded neatly on top of the couch.

The suit is gone, though.

Foggy sets the pizza down and crosses to the window, which is slightly open (one of these days Matt’s gonna regret leaving it that way) and slaps his hand on the sill, sighing heavily through his nose. Nelson and Murdock will be short lived if the other man keeps this up.

But when he turns and catches sight of the Spartan loft, everything neat and in its place –

The blanket Matt had been wrapped in is folded up and sitting on his bed, near his pillows, near a picture Karen had framed of the three of them because _you need more art in your life, Matt, even if I have to be the one to describe it to you_. It’s next to the head of the bed, on Matt’s side, a braille copy of the Bible and the picture and the blanket and Matt’s sunglasses making a neat little square that describes Matt Murdock’s life so particularly Foggy has to sit down on the bed.

He picks up the blanket and presses it to his chest, and he looks at the picture.

He’ll wait, and hold on to the blanket and have it ready for when Matt comes home.


End file.
